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Wondrous Lands and Oceans	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 10108 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Chapter Fourteen—A Force to the North

            “I don’t think it’s a good idea. Not after you went away so soon the last time.”

            Draco leaned back on his elbows in the grass and watched Granger speak. She had started out sitting in the loose semi-circle that the rest of them had formed around the central figure of Harry, but she had leaped up to her feet soon enough and hadn’t sat down since. Now she paced back and forth just outside the limit of the circle, ignoring the way that Weasley tried to reach up a hand and tickle her leg. She seemed used to doing that, Draco thought. As though he annoyed her that way often.

            Well, in this case it was most likely an attempt to get her to settle down and listen to some of the things people were saying. But Draco could imagine how irritating it would be to feel Weasley’s nails on his bare leg, and couldn’t help but twitch with a little sympathy for Granger.

            “Why not?” Weasley asked, when Granger didn’t look at him and no one else had said anything for several minutes. Draco could feel the effort it took Harry to hold himself back, and made sure to hold his eyes for a second and nod. Harry basked in the praise, and meanwhile Weasley went on, quite oblivious of the important things that were happening in bonds around him. “Harry and Malfoy are the ones best-suited for it, because of their magic. Who else could we send?”

            Granger turned and frowned down at Weasley as if she wondered where he got off disobeying her. Weasley only met her eyes with a very long and slow and wise look that Draco hadn’t thought him actually capable of. Granger looked back, and then suddenly moved back to her place in the circle and sat down.

            “I just think that they’ve been away too often, and they need to share in the work of the camp,” she said. “No one else will learn to trust them otherwise, and Malfoy is already distrusted enough.”

            Draco blinked. He had been thinking much the same thing lay behind the objections to their going away, but he hadn’t expected such bluntness from Granger, who ran around trying to smooth down the problems between everyone the same way that she smoothed the dirt in the greenhouses.

            “What about me?” Harry asked, in an almost passionless tone that couldn’t disguise the quivering, dancing flames in the bond from Draco. Harry was tightening for a fight, and for resistance, and for learning that they really did feel that way about him, the way he had always assumed they did. Draco caught his eye and shook his head this time, and Harry blinked and shut his mouth.

            “We don’t trust you as much as we should,” the Dragon-Keeper said, bending forwards. “Because you’ve spent so much time with Malfoy, Harry, and because of the way that you have changed since we got here. I don’t think you mean to, but you give the rest of us a creepy feeling, sometimes. Like now,” he added, and his gaze darted back and forth between Harry and Draco. “The way you’re looking at him.”

            “You know we have a bond,” Harry said, his voice a bit strained. “You know we can read each other’s thoughts. It would be a bit stupid to pretend we couldn’t, and it would probably only make you distrust us more.”

            The Dragon-Keeper nodded, and then stood up. It seemed that people were only going to listen to them if they stood up, Draco decided, and rose to his own feet. The Dragon-Keeper rocked back on his heels a little, obviously not expecting to be faced, but pushed ahead with what he obviously intended to say. “Look, Malfoy, we agreed that we would forgive what you’d done in exchange for Ginny’s life. But what about what you intend to do in the future? Can you promise that you’ll put the good of the camp, and the rest of us, ahead of your own good?”

            Draco leaned further back, and felt the pulse of worry from Harry’s direction. He waved a lazy mental arm at Harry in return. Don’t worry. I know how to handle this. And he did, although it might not be in a way that the Weasleys wanted, or had really bargained on when they started questioning him.

            “What about what you might do in the future?” he asked quietly.

            The Dragon-Keeper frowned at him. “What? I haven’t done anything so far to make you feel less than welcome.”

            “You keep questioning me,” Draco said. “You keep questioning Harry.” He ignored a mutter from the side that it was unnatural to hear him calling Harry by his first name. He suspected it hadn’t come from Harry’s original friends or Andromeda, and that was all that mattered at the moment. “You might start distrusting us more and more, and try to stab us in our sleep some night. Or at least require that Harry abandon me. Or tell me that because of what I’ve done in the past, you’ll never trust me. Your brother attacked me. Does that mean I should never trust him again? To fight by my side and guard my back, if nothing else?”

            “We don’t have anything like your reputation,” the Dragon-Keeper began.

            Draco rolled his eyes. “But you’re trying to argue based on the future now, not the past.”

            “The future influences the past.”

            “Then our families’ blood-feud has to influence it, too,” Draco said. “And let’s not forget that our ancestors have done some fairly nasty things to each other in the past. Shall I think that you’re untrustworthy because of what your Great-Uncle Samuel did to my Great-Aunt Natasha?”

            There was some more frowning, but the Dragon-Keeper slowly sank down again. Granger popped up as though she resented all the minutes that someone else had been talking.

            “Talking about the future, if you only think of it in that light, is useless,” she said impatiently. “We might as well give up right now and let the birds have us. And I’m sick of these old arguments that go nowhere. The question is, should we let Harry and Malfoy go away and investigate this thing to the north when they just got back from a journey that almost killed them?”

            Harry shivered. Draco narrowed his eyes at him, and Harry shrugged back, with an expression on his face that Draco understood without the words that accompanied it down the bond. When she gets going on something like this, then she never shuts up.

            Draco grimaced back, but leaned down into the grass to listen to Granger. At least she had picked up the conversation and hauled it bodily in another direction, instead of letting it circle on the old path that, he had to admit, was getting boring even to him.

*

            Harry was glad Draco had lost some of his combative stance. He could imagine Hermione and Draco clashing over what they should argue about next, and it was—frightening.

            Now Hermione had Andromeda’s attention, surprisingly. Andromeda put a hand on Teddy’s back, although he had spent the entire meeting asleep in her arms, and asked, “What happens if they get killed on these missions, without support? Then we’ve lost our strongest defenses.”

            She didn’t look at Draco, but the fact that she had said it was amazing enough. Harry could feel the emotions flowing from Draco, and they didn’t feel like the same ones he had spoken before. They were bright white and orange with wonder and surprise. Draco caught his eye and sneered a little, and the emotions changed color.

            I think it’s a good thing that you let her compliment you, without objecting, Harry sent to him.

            Draco said nothing in return, but the emotions shifted a bit back towards the lighter side of the spectrum. Harry smiled his satisfaction at the change and listened to Hermione’s answer, as she turned to face Andromeda.

            “Who could go with them?” Hermione asked simply. “If we strip the camp of most of its defenses, then there’s no one left here to tend the greenhouses or protect our homes if a bird attacks us. Or something else,” she added, in tones that told Harry she hadn’t forgotten the snake-shark. “That’s the core of our problem. We send out a small expeditionary force and rely on them, to the exclusion of everything, or we make ourselves vulnerable by sending out a bunch of people who can’t move as fast.”

            “If Harry could carry Malfoy on the winds, then he could carry us,” Percy pointed out.

            “I don’t know how many people I could carry,” Harry said, to contribute a simple fact to the debate. He didn’t know if they would listen to him, and in truth, he wasn’t sure that they ought to, either. He wanted to go alone and investigate with Draco if they did go. He didn’t want to be responsible for a whole crowd of people trailing behind him, and the arguments they would probably have every day.

            “It was a suggestion,” Percy said, in a mild tone. “I would like to see more of Hurricane.”

            “If we go,” Harry said, “we go into danger. The mummidade are sure that whatever lies to the north made the birds attack out of season.” He tilted his head at the two mummid of Sunglint, who stood still on the outer edge of the circle and watched in silence. Harry thought the debate would be largely incomprehensible to them, since they would see a lot of halves of people sitting around and babbling. “Keep that in mind. It’s not going to be a sightseeing trip to the sea or the plains.”

            “I’d like to go, too,” Hermione said, and sighed. “And I hate to see you risk your lives so soon after everything else you’ve done for us. But I think that you’re right and it would make the most sense to send people into danger who’ve proven they know how to handle it.”

            That was the clinching suggestion, and not many people argued after that. Harry thought many of them secretly agreed with Hermione, but had been searching for ways to express it without sounding like cowards. They didn’t care so much what happened to Malfoy.

            With Harry…

            He didn’t feel hated and despised by the Weasleys, not exactly. But he did know that being away from the camp meant he could do some good that he couldn’t do here, not when he was continually suspected and watched by the others.

            You’re relieved for a holiday from the gingers, Draco murmured into the back of his mind. You could just say it, you know.

            Harry shot back a furious bolt at him, but said nothing in words. That would only lead to another mocking sort of argument, and he was occupied in listening to the reassuring murmurs from people around them, and watching glances between Ron and Hermione that he expected to lead to something in particular.

            And they did, when Ron and Hermione came up to him and Draco and asked to go with them.

            From the way Draco stared, Harry decided that he hadn’t been anticipating the request, even though he had felt Harry thinking about them. Well, he didn’t pay attention to all of Harry’s thoughts that he should, either, any more than Harry paid attention to all of his.

            Harry grinned a little, and awaited the response Draco would make. He already knew what he would say to his best friends, that he would welcome their company, but he had no idea what protest or agreement would occur to Draco.

*

            Draco conjured up as clear a picture as he could of sweeping over the great plains of Hurricane, the silver flowers bobbing and tossing in the wind, and the efficient way they had gathered fish and killed the snake-shark, and flung the image at Harry. Then he conjured up an image of what those things would probably be like if they had someone else along with them, especially two someone elses, and one of them an expert at questioning every decision she hadn’t made herself.

            We aren’t going to the ocean, so we aren’t going to encounter the same problems, was Harry’s gentle protest.

            Draco was tempted to turn his back and march away, but that didn’t solve anything. Besides, Sunglint was still there, moving closer, and Draco didn’t know what it would do to the mummid or the camp’s alliance with them if they saw the only bonded pair of humans they knew and trusted fighting with other humans.

            You don’t play fair, Draco thought back to Harry, and said aloud, “I don’t think you would like our method of travel. Granger, I’ve never heard you spoken of as a broom traveler, although I know Weasley was a fair Quidditch player.” He nodded at Weasley to show that he meant it, and then waited, his head cocked.

            Weasley grimaced and spoke around what looked like a large, sour, invisible plum shoved into his mouth. “I can take one of the brooms, Malfoy.”

            “We really can’t, Ron,” Granger reminded him. “The camp needs then more than we do, when we have someone who can transport us in a different way.” She turned to face Harry. “So would you lift me and see how I do on a trial flight?”

            Draco blinked. He had to admit that he admired Granger’s courage. She saw a challenge, she flung herself at it.

            Even if, in this case, I could have wished for a little less on her part, he told Harry.

            And a little more on yours?

            You know it’s not cowardice that doesn’t make me enjoy the company of your friends, Draco told him, proud that his emotions came out as calm and smooth as a block of ice. Acting as though they’re above me and I need to apologize before I breathe is what makes me want some time away from them.

            It seemed for a moment as though Harry would respond, and aggressively, but then Draco felt him check the impulse, and bow his head. You’re right, and I’m sorry, he said, before he turned back to Granger and Weasley. “If you trust me to transport you with the winds, and if you won’t scold Draco, then you can come with us,” he said.

            Granger clasped her hands and beamed at Harry, while Weasley clapped him on the shoulder. “Like old times, mate, huh?” he asked, and his beaming smile was of the kind that Draco couldn’t help but resent.

            “Not exactly,” Harry said lightly, and touched Weasley’s hand, then took it off his shoulder, which helped Draco’s temper somewhat. “We’re on a different world, and a lot more rides on it this time.”

            Weasley snorted a little. “The last time, we didn’t have high stakes?”

            Harry’s face took on a pensive expression. “I still think someone else could have killed him, after I was dead,” he murmured. “What was important was that the piece of him in me died, not that I cast the final spell.”

            “But you were the only one who could have killed him in the way you did,” Granger pointed out, when Draco thought they would go along with Harry’s tiresome self-blaming spiel for a moment. “That way, there was no bloodshed, and no one had to tear their soul to commit murder on him. Including you.”

            Harry smiled at her, and Draco cocked his head. The emotions that came to him down the link were different than many he had felt when Harry was around his friends before, or at least around the other Weasleys. Harry was radiating white and gold, affection and admiration and trust.

            You believe her where you don’t believe me because you think she’s smarter than you, Draco realized in shock.

            I never said you weren’t smart, Harry snapped back, and visibly rolled his eyes the next time Draco looked at him.

            Draco shook his head, and said nothing of the many things he wanted to say, one of which was that he understood some of the suggestions he might make now when he wanted Harry to believe him instead of recoil into his own shell. Harry snorted anyway, and faced Weasley and Granger.

            “We’ll need to bring some extra food,” he began.

            “I don’t eat that much,” Weasley said, and he and Harry exchanged smiles that made Draco shift closer to Harry’s side. No matter what happened, he was not going to be left behind and out of this. He was not.

            “Not now that you’ve finally finished your growth spurt,” Harry murmured. “But no, what I was thinking was that we won’t have much time to hunt when we go to the north. We’ll move quickly to get there, so we don’t have to be away from the camp as long, and we’ll move high. We might not be able to see the ground below us at times.”

            Granger turned green, but nodded. “Can you—do you think you can make a kind of chair of wind to hold me? That would be the most comfortable for me.”

            Harry’s eyes lit up. “Of course, and if I can’t shape the wind just right, then Draco can cut the magical wind I’ll call up, can’t you, Draco?” He turned his head and invited Draco into the conversation just like that.

            Draco stared at him. Then he said, “Yes. If you’ll trust me with the safety of your life,” he added to Granger, because while he could feel exactly why Harry thought this was a good idea, that didn’t mean Harry’s friends felt the same way.

            Granger’s eyes met his and sparked, but her voice was polite. “I don’t think Harry can do it without you. I would much rather trust the safety of my life to you than just to him if he doesn’t think he can do it.” She shuddered and glanced at Harry, smiling, in a way that made Draco want to know which memory had prompted that smile.

            “Besides, we’ve been trusting you with our safety since you first joined the camp and helped us guard,” Weasley added gruffly. “Or since you destroyed that bird, anyway, if you don’t want to go back that far.” He must have seen the instinctive protest in Draco’s eyes.

            Draco waited to say anything, because from the way he gnawed a corner of his mouth, Weasley wasn’t finished. A moment later, he jerked his head down and muttered, “And we trust you with Harry’s life. That’s even more important.”

            They have, you know.

            Draco twitched his head in acknowledgment of Harry’s words, but he couldn’t control the frightening chaos of his own emotions enough to respond. He felt as if he was standing on the shore during a storm. What was he supposed to say to that? To the openness, to the fact that he was being trusted not to let Harry’s friends fall?

            I never wanted the responsibility. You can tell them that.

            You can, too, Harry pointed out. And if you mean the responsibility for my life, seems to me that you rather insisted on taking it.

            And he had. From the moment he had realized what the bond could mean to him, the kinds of wild magic it could lead him into, he had been determined to hang onto Harry instead of letting him get away.

            Draco grimaced and said, “If you trust me to cut and lay the wind for you, then I will. That doesn’t mean that I find it—admirable in you to trust me with that much.”

            “That untrustworthy, are you?” But Weasley only smiled at him, as if he knew something Draco didn’t, and clapped Harry on the shoulder again. “I think we should leave as soon as possible, after we’ve gathered the food. And keep in mind that it’s been a while since I’ve even been on a broom, let alone anything rougher, will you?”

            “What’s the matter, Weasley?” Draco murmured. He could feel Harry glowering at him, but really, he could not help himself. “Afraid to keep up the old Quidditch skills in case I should challenge you for a match?”

            Weasley gave him a sharp smile. “You’re on, if you ever want to play. I’ll insist that you use a broom, of course.”

            “I can’t fly on my own,” Draco said smoothly. “A broom would be acceptable, since I assume that neither of us wants Harry interfering in the match.” He leaned his arm on Harry’s shoulder, the opposite shoulder from the one Weasley rested on, but still an understandable claim.

            “You’re on,” Weasley said.

            “You can leave the dick-measuring contest out of this,” Granger snapped, with a violence that made Draco flinch in surprise before he thought about it. “In the meantime, you and I should go fetch the food, Harry. The rest of you are welcome to come with us, but I thought you might want to say goodbye to Teddy and your aunt, Draco.” She marched off, and Harry followed her a stunned moment later.

            Left by himself to face Weasley, Draco stared at him, shook his head, and said, “Your girlfriend’s got a mouth on her.”

            “Sometimes,” Weasley said, and leered at him. “And you won’t want to know what else she uses that mouth for.”

            Draco spat on the ground, the only way he could come up with of expressing what the image Weasley had just planted in his mind did to him. “Why did you tell me that?”

            Weasley was silent for a moment, looking down towards the camp as if he wanted to make sure that neither Granger nor Harry would overhear them. Since he wasn’t connected by a bond to Granger, Draco wasn’t sure why he was so worried about her. He could feel the muffled emotions from Harry, amusement and worry among them. He let them ride for now, and stood there without taking his eyes off Weasley.

            “Because I’m trying to be human, here,” Weasley said at last. He looked back at Draco, and his face had become harsher and greyer, more austere and more adult. “Because you’re part of Harry’s life, and you’ve proven that you aren’t going anywhere. I’m going to get along with you the same way I do with Andromeda—under protest. But I’ll do it.” He spent a few more minutes watching Draco, who couldn’t find his tongue even given the extra time. “The real question is, are you mature enough to do it back?”

            Draco took a deep breath. By fuck, of course he was. It was just that Weasley refused to understand things like that. Draco held out his hand.

            After so many moments of measuring that it rather felt as if years had passed in that time, Weasley shook it.

            And Draco wasn’t sure that it was worth it, until he felt the burst of uncomplicated joy coming up the bond from Harry, and was able to smile.

*

            SP777: Well, a one-shot on Ginny and the bird is a thought!

            I’m thinking it’ll probably be about 15 or 16 more chapters.

            Silverkitten: Some more Hurricane humans might show up in this story, but almost certainly not until the end.

            And thanks!
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Wondrous Lands and Oceans